Luckless
by Dessel Ordo
Summary: Theres a reason Qrow drinks, and its got nothing to do with his job as Ozpins eyes and ears in the war against Salem. A oneshot drabble idea that wouldnt leave me alone.


"The hell is your problem Qrow?!" the irate white haired woman shouts at him, a handful of the patrons of the Atlesian nightclub pausing to spare a glance for the apparently immanent spat.

Branwen scoffs, takes a swig from his drink and sarcastically quips "Don't see what _your_ problem is. We're work acquaintances at best, your like Ironwood but easier on the eyes." he pauses, then adds "Hello to you to Winter. Here for business I take it?"

Schnee slaps a handful of lien on the bar "Martini, extra dry." she orders, not breaking eye contact with Qrow. She nods, then replies "Ironwood only ever gets your ire. I've seen the part of you that has two nieces wrapped around his finger; and the man who holds both their father, Ironwood and Ozpins respect on top of that. I'm tired of this farce. One joint mission I get the joker. The next I get the skirt-chaser, or the seducer." she pauses to accept her drink and deal with the change "I know the game. But there's one rule you keep on breaking, ignoring or skipping."

Qrow heaves a sighs, rolls his eyes, pours a measure from his flask to his glass – ignoring the bartender glaring at him – then drawls "Dunno what your on about. Been a while since I was with twins."

The growl behind Winters glare would be enough to make an Ursa back off. Qrow doesn't flinch, and the DJ ques up the next song somewhere in the background. "Yes, those two floozies you were hitting on when you _knew_ I was going to meet up with you here. If you forgot, Ironwood sent me to get the truth about he stolen Bullhead out of you with your nieces and their friends not around."

"In a few hours. Figured I had time for some drinks and a good time first."

The glare narrows to a squint "You never let me, or anyone else, from what I've heard, get closer than arms length. I suspect Tai gets it, but he was your partner way back. Your nieces are closer still, but only because you visit for a few hours every couple weeks. Even Ozpin, the man who all but owned your soul before he passed only knew you in a professional sense." Schnee takes a steadying breath "The only reason you're alone is because you make it that way, Feathers"

Qrow closes his eyes, inhales through his nose, holds the breath, then exhales from the mouth "You don't wanna chase this rabbit-hole Winter."

"You know why I drew steel on you when I got to Beacon." the woman deadpans.

Qrow rolls his eyes yet again "Because I'm a disrespectful, unprofessional asshole with a _thing_ about stick-up-their-ass nobles and the pegs they need to be brought down."

A blush with the murderous glare and growl this time "No, I've grown used to that. Your a damn good field agent, so don't tell me you don't know that I use you to get away from all the shit that comes with being in High Command and a Schnee on top of that." another deep breath, another track change, and, from the sound of it, a fight on the dance floor. Not that either of the two notice. "Mistral last year. Ozpin and Ironwood had us after that psychotic scorpion fuanus." pause, sip, glare at the lech Haven upper class-man trying to butt in "Childs play for the two of us, three days left in the city, getting payed for it and not expected home until the times up. You treat me to a private box for the championship bout of the Mistral Regional tourney. Then a five star restaurant, cocktails, and an _amazing_ night of sex in the hotel room." this pause is the drink emptying "I woke up to a morning after pill on the counter on top of the second key-card to the room."

"So we had a one night stand. Didnt work out. What of it?" Qrow tries.

Winter slaps him hard enough to knock the glass from his hand "That was the seventh time we've been through the utterly asinine, and insane loop that is trying to have an actual relationship with you!"

Qrow plops a fistful of lien on the bar "For the mess and a triple of whiskey on the rocks. Light on the rocks." he looks back to Winter "I thought it was only a half dozen."

"Your senior year Vytal Festival tournament. My freshman. Doubles." Qrow heaves a sigh.

_Fuck, she really wants to do this._

Qrow chuckles next to Tai as the spinning arena randomizer settles. Forest and ruined city. Perfect. On top of that their opponents are some Atlas freshies. A burly guy in a wolfhide coat, tattered jeans, and a black t-shirt wielding what looks like a bastard sword opened up into an LMG. Next to him is a svelte girl clad in white spats, singlet top and a dagger-tailed greatcoat hanging open, white hair betraying her Schnee heritage, saber with a cut-out rapier sized hole in her right hand, matching rapier in her left displaying a lack of ranged options. "Calamity" the damn smug sister-fucking pretty-boy of a brother utters as Port and Oobleck start yammering about the match-up.

Smirking, Qrow hops back before strafing wide to the left. Tai charges the duo, lightning dust crystals shattering in his hands moments before impact. Whitey goes flying, but recovers on a damn glyph. The bruiser slides a few feet, only to get a fiery hay-maker courtesy of Tai to his face. Tai slaps the bastard sword aside, before driving an electrified fist into wolfies gut. The bruiser topples, only for the Schnee brat to blast Tai out of the arena with a gravity glyph.

Qrow leaps over the ice wall the kid raised to try to hem him in, a blast from Harbinger propelling him forward as he rotates in the air. A second shot tweaks his alignment, and a solid blow shatters the burly freshmans aura, dropping the round to a one on one. A few moments later the twin-tailed Schnee hellion is on him. All off-angles, unexpected pivots and glyph assisted flanks. Impressive enough for Qrow to half-shift harbinger from its base bastard sword configuration to scythe. The next block tears the cutlass from Schnees hand and throws it clear of the arena. For a half of a second panic flashes across her face, then she lashes out with her rapier. Qrow catches her wrist, pivots and slams her into the ground across his shoulders. The buzzer blares, the professors yammer, and a stunned girl gazes up, more or less at him "Yer not half bad. Up for a spar later?" he asks, holding out his other hand to help he girl up.

"Yes, the 'sparring session' that ended with me having to button my coat shut because we couldn't find my top, and you having to dart from shadow to shadow from the gym to your room so no one noticed the stain at your crotch." Winter deadpans at the tail end of Qrows brief recounting of their match.

Branwen shrugs "We didnt do the dirty that time. I'll give you six and a half. But you dont know the real reason I even made a pass at you after that fight."

The DJ ques up a new track, someone in the club drops a glass, and Winter shoots back "I was the start of your belt-notching ways? Flattering." rage and derision clear on her voice.

"Nope." Qrow pauses, takes a swig, glares down Winter until she looks away, then continues "You know what my semblance is. Bad luck, me, and everyone near me. Ever think what that does to the people close to me?"

"I-"

"It gets them killed. Leaves them disfigured. Scars'em ways aura cant undo." he takes a steadying breath and lets the hiss of the clubs fog machine go quiet, then continues "I'll spare you the boring and bawdy tales of one of the potential heirs to a bandit tribe growing up; I love the ladies, but they always end up hating me or worse."

Winter accepts a fresh drink, then counters "Surely a trained huntress would be able to survive your Semblance."

Qrow goes quiet for the rest of the song currently thrumming through the clubs sound system "Like I said, you dont know the reason I made a pass at you... or why it was me and Tai in doubles. Summer was the best of us." Winter opens her mouth, but Qrow presses on "Ya see, me an her had a date right after the first round of the tourney. Not sure if it builds up or not, but at first, she dodged, laughed or soldiered through the bad side of being by me for too long. Had just shy of four years practice at doing just that after all."

Concern flashes across the Specialist' face for a moment before she reigns it in "Whatever happened couldn't have been your fault."

"It wasn't" Qrow answers "Some window cleaners were on lunch. Their scaffoldings breaks gave out a few minutes after me an Summer walked past. The whole rig nailed her halfway down the hill from the landing strip to the neighborhood the cafe we were headed to was in. Left leg broke in four places, right shoulder dislocated and a concussion severe enough they held her in the ICU overnight. Just bad luck. That was the tenth time something like that had happened to her;Tai and Raven had both lost count of their hospital trips courtesy of my semblance years ago by then. Tried to wait in the lobby for my girlfriend, but after the twelfth code while I sat in an out of the way chair they made me leave." he takes a deep breath "The training arena I took you to was STRQs favorite. Out of the way, well padded and had good ventilation."

"Why didn't you just break up with her?" Winter eventually manages.

Qrow shrugs "You never met Summer properly, but my niece is the spitting image of her, but only with half of the heart and ability to forgive." Qrow takes a drink, Winter downs her glass, a new song plays and he continues "Only way to saver her life was to break her heart. So you left, Raven got hitched and Summer and I were 'just friends' for the next few years."

Winter cocks an eyebrow "You mean to tell me your philandering ways stopped for more than a year?"

Now its Qrows turn to glare at his opposite "Just because I had to be an absolute ass about ending it with Summer to make it stick didn't make me love he any less or actually _want_ to do it any more." He takes a swig, openness about his past already starting to wear away the callous mask he wears to cope. "First real relationships tend to leave a mark" he mutters just low enough that it shouldn't be audible to anyone over the din of the club.

"Qrow, I-"

"Don't try for pity just yet Tempest." he bitterly interjects "You see, two and a half years after our little tête-à-tête during the Vytal festival, my _dear_ sister finally succumbed to her nature and left my brother-in-law to raise their child alone. Along with her wedding band and the shards of her scroll. The last thing he wanted to see was another Branwen, for obvious reasons, but there was a particularly ballsy crow hanging around his house in Patch while he coped."

Winter pouts "Are you going to actually explain to me your having two semblances some time during this rant about why you cant be a proper suitor?"

The next song plays, some lightweight pukes, and a gaggle of schoolgirls with fake I.D.s stat cackling over something while Qrow side-eyes Winter "I was Oz's eyes, you're Jims right hand; the fact he didnt claim equivalency to middle of the road bringing you into the Circle is one of his top 5 shortcomings, but has nothing to do with why its borderline suicidal for you to keep pushing for a relationship with me." Qrow pauses to take a big drink, ignore Winters scowl and continue "Just my luck, Summer came to console Taiyang on his wife, the mother of his daughter up and running out on him for no damned reason."

Winter winces, and slides her drink back and forth "I... what does that have to do with our conversation?" Clearly hoping he isn't implying what he is.

Deadpan to the point of nearing lifelessness Qrow answers "The burgeoning blonde brawler heard weird noises, so she went outside to play instead of the living room. After all, her Papa and auntie Summer were having a serious talk in his bedroom. Shes seventeen now, and Ruby is fifteen. I've heard commissioned officers in the Atlesian Army are good with math."

Qrow slams his drink, the bartender awkwardly slides a fresh one at the man baring his soul, clearly eavesdropping as much as the tender in a busy club can. "And your a good uncle..." Winter trails off "Gods, what did you- "Qrow forces a roguish grin her way. Some wounds just don't heal, after all "I take it _that_ was when you became a man-whore then?"

Half of the silent round on the house is gone before Qrow can woodenly quip "Hey, I resemble that remark." over the sound of either a dance off or rap-battle starting off in the crowd somewhere. Winter doesn't look fooled so he just presses ahead "This is where you come back into the sordid tale of why I'm bad news and you should move on though. Ya see, I'd heard that a certain up and coming Schnee had just snubbed daddy dearest, and graduated OTS early during her time at Atlas Academy. Now, a guy like me never turns down a good drink, or a free drink, and everyone knows that graduation parties, especially military ones tend to get wild. So I headed north."

"Wonderful, I am the first woman from your skirt-chasing days." Winter half sighs, half moans.

Smirking as the bar goes quiet for a moment as one drunk picks a fight with another, Qrow lets the sounds of flesh bashing into flesh pick up before shooting back "And I was your first, period. Besides, from what I remember you loved that party."

Blushing and snarling Winter shoots back "Until I realized that half of the Second Lieutenants graduating with me had heard us, or more specifically, me."

"Still don't hear you complaining."

"Only because I outrank and out influence the lot of them by an order of magnitude even without factoring in blood now." Winter pouts back, before pausing to let the commotion of the bouncers kicking the fighters out die down. "So instead of trying for something real, you started sleeping around and blamed your semblance on nothing sticking." Winter pinches he bridge of he nose "I don't even know why I try sometimes."

Qrow smothers a sigh behind a drink and the pretense of watching the dance-off that had continued despite the brawl, looks like a white haired half-Schnee is getting schooled by a sharply dressed, dark skinned student. Whatever. "Which Is why you deserve a broken winged bird that can actually be healed, since that seems to be your thing, not me."

Winter rolls he eyes, shifts her left leg from its perch on her right, before laying her right over the left and dryly observes "Again with the baseless self-depredation."

"Well, there was Angela, she lost a foot. Pamela had her left arm crushed off. Sandra and Rita both got captured and executed by the White Fang in an open CCT broadcast." Winter winces in that way she does when something hurts bad but she never got to process it right because her family is as fucked as his. He hates that wince. All tension and looking away without letting her perfect poise and posture slip, then a flash of revulsion you have to have known a Schnee for years, or be as good as kin to to catch. Qrow smothers a sigh along with the urge to glomp her like Ruby would Weiss were the current heiress to wince the same way and presses on "Monica found a better man than me to pour affection into. Erica found out for huntsmen and huntresses everywhere that a deathstalkers venom sack is pressurized when she pulled her lance out of one she was straddling during a fight." He takes a breath and a drink as Winters face slowly starts to fall "Tina met this snake faunus and then I was last decades news."

Winters drink pauses halfway to her mouth "Wait, what?" clearly unable to pair any snakes faunus traits to a reason to leave one man for another.

Qrow shrugs "Technically a Diamondback faunus if ya wanna split hairs. Guy had two dicks, both bigger than mine." Winter shifts from paused to frozen at that, stuck somewhere between curious and revolted "Icing on that cake was that it was my bed they were using. Marys still in a coma after getting knocked into an Apathy nest while I was stuck dealing with a Sphinx during a joint missoin. Then there was poor Jessica, stabbed in the gut by a jealous rejected suitor just because I flirted with her while she was working as a bartender. Didnt even know she had been dealing with that kinda shit. I was honestly trying to make the sad looking cutie smile."

Winter side-eyes him as she gets a fresh drink, before pressing "And..."

"And tap that sweet ass like a drunken grimm narwhal." Qrow concedes "But how could I have known she had a jealous stalker in the bar? It took me six damn pick-ups to get a smirk, and then psycho fucker tried to gut the poor girl for it!" Qrow half rants, arms flailing and expression bombastic.

"Your not really helping your cause with that last one." Winter dryly observes.

"I helped the local cops investigate Crazys house. Found three more he'd been sweet on chained up in his basement, and eight on top of that who I'd been with one night or another during my traveling chained up, raped and tortured in his basement."

Now she freezes, and the bartender silently slides some shots of... well, its strong, and he really needs to tip the dick, or deck him for listening in. However most of his focus is on pretty pale blue eyes and barely restrained concern "Remember that stake-out we got stuck on in the Atlas slums? Big panel van, the lead ran dry, but the tip-"

A blushing winter slaps Qrow just barely lightly enough to be on the playful side "That joke wasn't funny the first time." her face more or less settles back to a scowl as the next song starts thrumming out a powerful bass-line.

Qrow rubs at his cheek, before chuckling out "Well, its not like you weren't my only regular feature those years." Winters hand raises for a second blow "But, that beach in Menagerie, you know, the one with the _loose_ dress code?"

"Ooh, perfect, the second time you took a few days to sweep me off my feet, then disappear or let circumstance take me far enough away the the problem will fix itself." Winter fake-cheers, face nearly emotionless as she claps through the exclamation.

"Or that supply closet a while back when Oz asked me to keep you distracted while he talked to James about something?" ooh, a blush, growl _and_ a raised fist. "I have a point!" Qrow interjects when the first cocks back to strike "Crazy stalker turned out to be one of my old classmates, Mauve Reisch, outa AMYT, and that team got nearly as much attention as STRQ from Oz back in the day."

Winter breaks away from his gaze as she ripostes "So he was a skilled, washed up psychopath. I still dont see why he went after you paramours as well as his own."

Qrow shakes his head "Because of his former partner, Amber Pelots. Well, I suppose it _was_ Amber Branwen at the end. Not that he acknowledged that in his ranting while the cops interrogated him."

Not every team or set of partners stick together past graduation, that's common knowledge, Winter being a prime example of that. But for former partners to kill each other? Murders within families are more common than that. "He didnt..."

"Nope, all me and the luck that follows me like a shadow again."

Qrow couldn't help but smile as he hacked his way through beowolves and boarbatusks. After all, life is finally looking up. His first mission back from his honeymoon, and isn't that a trip. Him, Qrow Branwen, married. He dodges a beowolves claws only for Ambers jian-rifle to sever the arm that had lashed out at him.

Thats the wildest part of it, former partner to his old academy rival teams leader Amber Branwen, as of two months ago. His wifes blond twintails flutter as she pirouettes away from the follow up slash from the grimms other arm, her floppy pitbull ears clearing her long locks just enough to be seen before her Keltainen Furys blade is buried in the beowolfs skull. With a giggle and a wink she dashes off towards a rocky ledge in the forest they had been sent to clear the grimm from. Grinning like a madman Qrow launches into the pack they had been working together on until the second showed up. Still, that's childs play to the two of them. Harbringer fully deployed he spins through the pack, leaping over an errant slash to kick off another beowolfs skull.

He wont deceive himself that he was shocked the first time Amber let her faunus ears peek out of her poofy twintails. Or that she _liked_ having said ears stroked. Not that he was complaining about the results. After all, a year after that revelation he had himself a wife, and to hell with everyone who said they had moved to fast. Harbringer barks and launches him from the evaporating corpses form, his ring finger tingling with a new, but not unpleasant, sensation as the haft of the weapon shifts in his hand. Much like Amber, he is more or less letting himself get lost in the joy of his last mission for the next year or so with his wife, the sweetest girl in the world making grunts somewhere between adorable and wrathful as she deals with her pack off to the left. The ultrasound yesterday had confirmed that she's got his bun in her oven, and Oz had been gracious enough to give them both the rest of the year off after telling him the good news. Three shots from harbringer turn him into a gray and black whirlwind scything through the grimm surrounding him, his momentum halting as he skids to a halt in a clearing. In the moment of silence, he looks across the clearing, and his heart freezes.

Keltainen Fury is buried in a slowly dissipating Ursa Major, thirty feet from Amber. Her Aura is the deepest hes seen, her semblance is Durability, the fight had been a fun goodbye to fieldwork before the start of life as parents and a family. But thats the biggest King Taijiu Qrow has ever seen. And Ambers frozen on the spot, gazing up at her impeding doom. In a flash he's a crow not a man, streaking at the grimm as close to the descending lighting bolt the monster is. Hes a man, spinning as the extension of his self and will sings death to the grimm. Harbinger decapitates the massive serpent, and everything below where Ambers shoulders were lifelessly falls to the ground in a pool of blood as the grimm turns to so much ash.

"Qrow, I-"

"Will die. Thats how it goes Winter. I get close, you pay the price." he barks loud enough to quiet the area around them, pointing and lunging at her as he does.

"Your drunk." she states plainly, face barely hiding her emotions as spit and malice splash off it.

A snort and a sip "What keeps me from ending it."

"You wouldn't and we both know it." she barks back.

"I can't _yet_. Just have to finish one last job."

Winter shudders and snarls out "And your nieces, what about them after that 'last job'?"

He finishes his dink "They'll be sad, but they're strong."

The slap throws him from his stool to the ground "What about me? What about Tai, or James or Glynda and Peter and Bartholomew?!" she looms over him, panting "Yes, your bad fucking luck to everyone around you and yourself. Yes, its killed maimed and injured damn near everyone you've ever cared about. But that doesn't mean there aren't still some of us left who care back." For a few moments she just looms over him, face caught halfway between rage and concern, panting from exertion and a military trimmed fingernail deep grip on her emotions. But her eyes are boring into his, and he cant break his gaze.

"I've hurt you before, I probably will again."

She squeezes her eyes shut, and the rage melts away "I still keep coming back or letting you back. Your killing yourself Qrow. And its not just you your hurting by embracing that."

Uncomfortable and hazy memories of Summer Lite shouting him down in an abandoned and failed Apathy infested ranch not more than a month ago forces its way to the front of his admittedly addled mind. "You keep trying to shut her down and I'm damn close to beating you down on precedent." the bartender quips as he watches his most recent angel saunter-stagger to the bathroom.

Qrow doesn't even try to stand up "If I let her in, her career will be over after a season."

"You don't honestly think she cares about that officers commission, do you?" the white haired drink-slinger counters.

Qrow squeezes his eyes shut "I was never meant for this."

The old man rolls his eyes "If you rally were meant to be alone, you'd be black-out, I'd be pissed and Schnee would be back in her manor enjoying a decent vintage, not the gutrot my boss has me pouring for kids with fake I.D.s"

"I've had to rub cream on my junk four times to clear it up, and I'm damn lucky I haven't caught anything that actually hangs around. The stories I told her tonight I picked because I remembered actual names, not shit like 'shorts stack moaner' or 'micro-skirt skank' because I couldn't be bothered to remember" Qrow counters from the filthy floor.

"That woman has been digging through the mud you made for damn near a decade or more from the bits of story I was by you to hear dumb-ass. Beside that, if its a semblance issue, I heard there's a guy for hire in Mistral who's semblance is point blank _stealing_ other peoples semblances."

Qrow hauls himself off the sticky, grimy floor and accepts the offered drink just in time for Winter to get back from the bathroom, a confident smirk on his face, "Hey, Winter, up for a dance or ten?" he asks as she resumes her spot by him at the bar. The barkeep smirks, writes down everything he knew about the guy last he heard of him on a napkin and slips it into Qrows hand as the couple banters for a bit before heading for the dancefloor.


End file.
